KIRKUS REVIEW

An inventively designed board book
introduces the solar system to the youngest learners.

“Our solar system has eight
planets,” begins the book, which presents stock photos of the sun and each
planet in turn, with a fact or two about each. With the turn of the page,
readers see the sun at the center of the double-page spread, the edge of the
recto rounded at the leading edge of the sun’s surface. Each subsequent recto
is similarly shaped, with an extra bulge where each planet’s photo is printed,
and extends a little further out, creating an overlapping effect that evokes
the planets’ orbits. It looks impressive, but in execution it falls short in
clarity, since the facts associated with each body are printed on the other
side of the page. Readers see that the “Sun is a giant ball of hot gas”
opposite the photo of and label for Mercury. The planets’ photos are printed on
both sides, but their relative sizes can cause confusion. “The rocks on the
surface of Mars look red,” reads the text next to the diminutive picture of
Mars, but the spread is dominated by Jupiter, also reddish, on the right. The
facts presented vary in developmental appropriateness; will the board-book
audience really understand such statements as “Gas giant planets do not have a
solid surface”?

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